JOANNE
PAYLING
Diary #26
Strolling
the Boulevard
to Better Classroom Management
"Club Fred" meets Thursdays after school. Five teachers, including myself and our principal meet, view, and discuss Fred Jones' video series Tools for Teaching. Dr. Jones is a psychologist who has observed excellent teachers and analyzed why they are effective. What he shares in the videos and accompanying book is pure common sense, yet the insights are revelations for me. As I begin to incorporate his positive classroom management strategies into my practice, I am seeing results.
After viewing the first video, I immediately rearranged the seating in my classroom. Instead of the traditional corn rows of my youth, the desks are now arranged in a grouping pattern that provides for walkway "boulevards" that allow me to prevent disruptions before they occur.
The key, Jones points out, is mobility and proximity. In the traditional seating arrangement, there are built-in red (stop), yellow (caution), and green (Go!) zones. The green zones are areas far enough away from the teacher where students feel safe to chat, disrupt, goof off. When my students are aware that I can be at their sides within seconds, they are far less likely to be off-task. If they are goofing off, a minimum of steps has me at their desks, indicating what they need to be doing.
In the new arrangement, more often than not, disruptions are avoided altogether because I "work the room" by constantly walking the new, wide aisles between the grouped desks as I either explain a concept or check student work.
I have a long way to go to instill this new technique into my daily practice. The front of the room is where a teacher belongs, right? That is where the overhead is, the whiteboard, the paperwork, all the tools of the trade. Wrong, says Fred. The teacher needs to be among the students as teaching and learning is taking place. If a concept needs to be shown on the overhead, I can have a student write it or change transparencies as I explain it during my strolls around the room.
This is the opposite of the way I was taught. My teachers held court at the front of the room, ostensibly the center of everyone's attention. What I have learned this year, however, is that I am definitely not the center of my middle schoolers' attention. Listening to me explain what a dependent clause is ranks very low on their radar screen of input that requires attention. Yet requiring attention is exactly what I must do and by working the room, students get the message. I must forget the way I was taught and constantly remind myself to be on my students' "Sit up and pay attention" radar (a.k.a. red) zone.
The Tools for Teaching videos have many valuable lessons for me to learn and make part of my daily practice. Fred Jones' research and strategies are right on target. And the bonus to Jones' system is our school's Club Fred. It is an enjoyable way to come together with my peers and my boss to learn these lessons and share our attempts at incorporating the insights being taught. Good-bye, green zones.
Hello, good
classroom management!
